Auto racing and cable TV have had a long and successful marriage. Those who may not have been around at the beginning might not know that auto racing drove the cable TV business at its birth, and cable TV, in turn, greatly expanded the number of TV hours devoted to auto racing, thus helping the sport to expand its customer base.

Cable TV discovered a big competitive advantage in auto racing that was largely ignored by the old broadcast TV business model. Cable TV found a great sport with a huge following that was tremendously underserved when it came to television. If ESPN put auto racing on TV, then race fans would have to get cable TV to watch. So, auto racing drove cable subscription.

Furthermore, auto racing came with its own big bank of potential buyers of TV commercials. All of the sponsors on the sides of the cars were low hanging fruit to cable TV advertising salespeople.

We point all this out because it’s still happening. The Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series has launched a promotion with MavTV. They’ll be handing out “I Want My MavTV” cards at remaining events this year. Race fans who bring their “I Want My MavTV” card to the series apparel trailer will get a free gift.

The goal is to get race fans to make sure they’re getting their MavTV channel from their local cable provider.

“Our goal is to get MavTV into more homes across the country, to showcase all the different forms of Lucas Oil Motorsports programming and the numerous other broadcasts within the network. Everyone that turns in their “I Want My MavTV” card at our series events will get a free gift and a chance to win some Lucas Oil Product gift packages” stated Ritchie Lewis, series director.

We salute the Lucas Oil Dirt Late Model Series for continuing this great tradition in racing. The birth of cable TV has been incredibly instrumental in elevating our sport to a new level that few could have predicted in the old age of broadcast television.